Thomas Middleditch, from the series Silicon Valley, has come out. Not as gay or bisexual, though. That is barely newsworthy anymore. No, he came out of an even deeper closet. In a Playboy interview, he revealed that he and his wife are swingers. He said “To be honest, swinging has saved our marriage.. We have different speeds, and we argue over it constantly, but it’s better than feeling unheard and alone and that you have to scurry in the shadows… By the way, it’s now called being ‘part of the lifestyle.’ The term swinging is old.” He is correct, although we generally do not suggest swinging as a way to save your marriage, as it can often exacerbate existing problems, as well as making what is already good even better. Good for him. Most of the swingers I know in show business are very much in the closet.
I was very sorry to hear about the passing of adult star Jessica Jaymes. She was just 43. The cause of her death is still unknown. She was featured in the HBO Docuseries Vivid Valley, and made appearances on the Showtimes series Weeds. She was very pleasant the few times I met her. She could get pretty nasty in some of her sex scenes, but only in the nicest way.
SNL sure had a close call. The first two episodes of the season were really good (the third not so much), and I am sure they were better than they would have been with the firing of Shane Gillis. I thought originally it might be much ado about nothing. After all, comics are supposed to push the envelope. After seeing some clips, Gillis pushed the envelope, set it on fire, then pissed on it. His sets were brutally racist and homophobic. He would have been a very poor fit with the excellent Asian and openly LGBTQ Bowen Yang. Yang is the third openly gay male, and fifth LGBTQ cast member. The other gay cast members include Terry Sweeney, John Milhiser, Danitra Vance, and Kate McKinnon. Yang has been great.
I personally believe that the staged “dating” shows are an affront to civilized society, and nothing is worse than The Bachelor. It makes a mockery of love and marriage. The so-called pro-marriage folks should be up in arms about this, not the nice gay people who just want a normal marriage. It does show the progress the gay community has made that they can be a part of this sham relationship show, perhaps with something honest for the first time. On Bachelor in Paradise, the real couple proposed to each other on the final show. Contestant Demi Burnett actually had little interest in any of the Bachelors. She wound up proposing to her girlfriend, Kristian Haggerty, who was not part of the cast. Sometimes a little reality does slip into these shows. Not very much, since the whole thing was obviously staged for ratings, but at least it admits that there are LGBTQ people.
It is true that I was never a big Stormy Daniels fan, but regardless of her motives, her battle with Donald Trump was part of what helped get us to where we are today- an impeachment investigation of the president. It was the first revelation and court case (where he was an unindicted co-conspirator) of what would become many criminal activities by the president. He can still be prosecuted for when he leaves office. It dramatically changed her live appearances as lots of women were showing up to cheer her on. At one appearance in Ohio, though, the cops swarmed in and arrested her. That action was illegal. She was offered $450,000 to settle her unlawful arrest lawsuit against the Columbus police department. That is quite a bit more than the $130,000 Trump paid her to keep her mouth shut. In an insane ruling by George W. Bush appointee judge S. James Otero in Stormy’s defamation suit against the president (and he did repeatedly and publicly defame her), the judge decided that what the president actually did was just rhetorical hyberpoble. I guess that is what we are calling lying and defamation these days. The judge then ordered her to pay the president’s ridiculous legal fees of $293,000. Even if she has to pay that she is still ahead of the game. She has also apparently given up on being a Republican, as she supports Elizabeth Warren.
Et tu, Franco? One of the oldest scams in show business is opening an acting school with promises that their connections can get you into the movies. Actor James Franco did that, and apparently, according to two lawsuits from women claiming he victimized them, it was even sleazier than that. In porn, you generally don’t have to pay to audition, and you should never ever have to audition a sex scene. In Franco’s world, he managed to charge women $750 to audition a sex scene with him. The class, according to student Tither-Kaplan, did not actually teach you about sex scenes in movies, but was more about testing their abilities to push boundaries. According to her, the class did not teach her how to “maneuver in sex scenes professionally as an actor. “In fact, I didn’t know anything about nudity riders, the detail required in them, the right to counsel with the director about nude scenes, the custom to choreograph nude scenes ahead of time to negotiate them with the cast and the director — I knew none of that throughout that class.” He did use some of the women in the class in his films, but only for ratehr dubious scenes where they did not know the rights they had. She told The Los Angeles Times that in a nude orgy scene she filmed with Franco and several women three years ago, he removed protective plastic guards covering other actresses’ vaginas while simulating oral sex on them. There are clear rules about filmed sex scenes, and Franco, based on the accusations of several women, seems to ignore them.
